24 March 2010 9:12 AM

Welcome to the age of the rugby mercenary

Carl Hayman has decided against returning to Super XV rugby and representing the All Blacks in the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. In other words, arguably the best tighthead prop of his generation has chosen not to represent probably the best side in the world at the biggest rugby tournament on the planet which happens to be taking place in his rugby-mad home country.

Hayman was widely expected to leave Newcastle at the end of the season and return to New Zealand in order to earn his place in the All Black squad in time for the World Cup. Instead he has taken up Toulon's lucrative offer of joining the Top 14 club thanks to a contract that shall see him earn up to 1.8m euros.

It is the age of the rugby mercenary. To borrow the words of John Inverdale (hardly Milton but he's nailed it this time): 'Professionalism has pretty much killed loyalty.'

This is not a personal attack on Hayman. Since his arrival at Newcastle Falcons he has had a giant-sized hand in transforming the fortunes of the club. From his first game on Tyneside he has been a bulldozing force and a linchpin of the side, quite literally when it comes to scrum time. It says Northern Rock on his shirt and he plays like it's written on his heart.

Tightheads have become a priceless commodity in the professional era, often the highest earners in a side; they don't get the limelight but they get the bucks. Advertisers might never appreciate their marketing value — they don't look as good as Josh Lewsey in lycra — but coaches certainly do and the guys who put their neck on the line get their due rewards.

It is the tighthead who can do most to disrupt the opposition's scrum on their put-in and it is the tighthead who can do most to establish a solid platform on his own side's put-in. A solid scrum is the most vital of all set pieces because if you lose that battle, you probably lose the war (Leicester v Wasps earlier this season comes screaming back).

Anyway the point is everybody wants a piece of the pie but only French clubs can afford a decent slice.

It's not quite Messi-money — that Barcelona magician is raking in more than £500,000 a week — but Hayman's salary will see him enter a new stratosphere of earnings for a rugby player. Not bad going for a guy who was earning roughly £10,000 a game with Newcastle anyway.

Such a high-profile Channel hopper will inevitably bring back the great salary cap debate. If Guinness Premiership clubs, with their salary ceiling of £4m per year, cannot compete financially with the richest clubs in France, the best of British (and imported) talent will always be tempted by a one-way ticket on the Eurostar, or even a flight further south to Super rugby.

When Dan Carter was offered more than £750,000 to spend a season at Toulouse, the disparity between spending powers here and abroad was brutally exposed (as it was he ended up on silly money at Perpignan) while Andy Goode's two-month sojourn to Durban with the Natal Sharks raises further questions about loyalty and contracts. How long until rugby hosts its first IPL-style player auction?

It is estimated that the average player in the Premiership earns around £80,000 a year, while your typical Top 14-er earns roughly £100,000 (with attractive tax-free deductions of up to 30 per cent on offer, too). Those figures don't quite tell the whole story, however, as the monetary difference between the top earners and the squad players is a lot greater in France. Add to that temptation a dash of sunshine in Toulon or the pull of Paris and it's no wonder players are migrating south.

Next season the Top 14 will introduce an 8m euro salary cap, and will also begin to phase in a home-grown quota (starting at 40 per cent of a squad and rising by 10 per cent for two consecutive seasons), but both systems leave plenty of petty cash in the kitty for some shirt-selling stars from abroad.

Although obviously concerned about losing talent, most Premiership clubs do not want to raise the salary ceiling. And why would they? The figure was picked as a sustainable out-going for all clubs in the league. Unlike so many football clubs, Premier Rugby is determined not to fall in the trap of biting off more than it can chew.

Barry Hearn, outspoken chairman of Leyton Orient among other things, believes the situation in football is worse than feared. 'Sixty per cent of all football clubs are insolvent and that includes some in the Premier League. People who run these clubs are cheating. If you can't pay your bills, that means you are insolvent. It is a criminal offence for directors of companies to trade insolvently. They're like athletes taking drugs. They're cheating the public because they are fielding players they cannot afford to pay.'

Even if that's an exaggeration, rugby clubs do not want to follow the football template and a salary cap is surely the best way to avoid that. A financial restriction that prevents clubs 'buying' success at the risk of insolvency, administration and oblivion puts a speed limit on dangerous investment.

Yet while Premiership clubs play financial catch-up at a sensible pace, individual players can only be expected to follow the dosh. They'll stick with the hare until the tortoise overtakes on the final bend.

The amateur era has come and gone, professional rugby changed the game and now we have something else entirely. Until the Guinness Premiership, the Top 14 and the Super XV unite in agreeing a global salary cap — a solution that is utterly impractical for so many reasons, financial, political and otherwise — rugby remains stuck in the age of the mercenary.

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